Home / Other News / March 2017 I Cyclists hit out at ‘ridiculous’ anti-CS11 publicity stunt

March 2017 I Cyclists hit out at ‘ridiculous’ anti-CS11 publicity stunt

Ham & High) (Photo: Jessica Learmond-Criqui) Hampstead children protest against pollution. PUBLISHED: 14:22 17 March 2017 | UPDATED: 09:25 20 March 2017 Cyclists have slammed a picture of children in face masks protesting against pollution as “ridiculous propaganda” that “has no logic to it.” As reported in the Ham&High, a group of pupils and parents… [Read More]

Cyclists have slammed a picture of children in face masks protesting against pollution as “ridiculous propaganda” that “has no logic to it.”

As reported in the Ham&High, a group of pupils and parents from Hampstead schools donned facemasks and staged a protest last week outside St Stephen’s former church, in Rosslyn Hill, to protest against pollution that was “choking them.”

They claim that the HS2 scheme and CS11 cycle superhighway will bring hundreds of extra cars and HGVs into the narrow streets of Hampstead and urged the schemes to be stopped.

But Justin McKie, of Regents Park Cyclists, who lives in Belsize Park, said: “I find it very distasteful that a photo of kids in face masks, which were in fact surgical masks and would do nothing to filter out pollution, was used in a propaganda fashion to protest at the CS11 scheme.

“Because of the adjustment made to CS11 plans, I do not believe that the mass displacement of traffic because of CS11 will happen. The issue is that hundreds of parents get into their cars every day to take their children to school. There needs to be an incentive for these people to use alternative methods of transport.”

“It is also illogical. The aim of the Cycle SuperHighways are to encourage cycling and reduce pollution.

The picture and story caused a storm on twitter with parents and cyclists calling for reductions to the school run traffic.